Chapter 6
The next morning, Ember woke to pain—deep, aching pain that seemed to radiate from every fiber of her being. Her arms refused to lift. Her legs protested the slightest movement. Even turning her head required a monumental effort.
“Muscle soreness,” Rykan said from across the cabin. He was already up, already working, looking disgustingly unaffected by yesterday’s activities. “It’s normal for someone unused to physical labor.”
“This is normal?”
“It’ll pass in a few days.”
A few days of feeling like she’d been trampled by a herd of something large and unfriendly. Wonderful. She forced herself upright anyway, gritting her teeth against the protest of her body. If she lay in bed waiting for the pain to pass, she’d lose all the ground she’d gained yesterday.
“Stay there,” he ordered.
“But—”
“Stay.”
Too sore to argue, she obeyed, watching curiously as he retrieved a large wooden tub from the rafters, then started filling it from the pot of water he kept simmering over the fire. After adding cool water from the water barrel and checking the temperature, he gestured at the tub.
“A hot bath will help.”
A bath? In a wooden tub? The memory of her enormous marble tub floated across her mind for a fleeting moment, but even in this minimal form, the lure of hot water was too hard to resist. She slowly and painfully climbed to her feet, then realized the situation.
The tub sat in the middle of the cabin. There was nowhere to hide. No screen. No privacy.
“I’ll go get more firewood,” he said.
He left, pulling the heavy door shut behind him, and she quickly shed the oversized linen shirt and eased her body into the steaming water.
The heat provided instant relief, seeping into her sore muscles in waves of comforting warmth.
She leaned her head back against the tub, closed her eyes, and let out a long sigh.
This was luxury. Not the kind she was used to—the kind that came with servants and silver and fine linens—but the kind that came from simple comfort after hard effort.
The door opened a few minutes later and she instinctively drew her knees up, covering herself as much as possible.
He entered with more firewood, not even glancing at her in the tub as he added the wood to the storage bin.
Then he retrieved a small cake of soap from his supplies and handed it to her.
He still wasn’t looking at her, but their fingers brushed as she took the soap and electricity sparked between them.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice sounding too loud in the small room.
He didn’t answer, just turned away and busied himself with something at the other end of the cabin.
He’d seen more of her naked body than anyone ever had, but this felt different—more intimate, more vulnerable.
She washed herself quickly, the soap smelling of herbs and something wild and clean that she now associated with him.
When she emerged from the bath, wrapped in the linen towel he’d left for her, her skin was pink and tingling and the worst of the muscle pain had subsided to a dull ache.
“Thank you,” she said, her back to him as she dressed again in the too-large clothes, feeling almost human.
“An injured companion is a complication,” he said brusquely, and she tried not to dwell on the word companion.
“Still,” she said, turning to face him. “Thank you.”
He grunted in what seemed to have become his standard response to her gratitude, and she hid a small smile.
“The pain will be less today,” he added. “But you’ll still be sore.”
“I can handle it.”
That earned her an almost-smile. “We’ll see.”
The next few days settled into a routine.
Mornings began with him already awake and working while she still felt like she’d been torn apart and reassembled by a disinterested artisan.
But she climbed out of bed and did the stretches he’d taught her—simple movements that hurt at first but gradually loosened her tight muscles until she could move without wincing.
Then came lessons. He was a patient teacher, although a demanding one. He showed her exactly how to do something, then expected her to replicate it perfectly. When she failed, he made her do it again. And again. Until she got it right.
“You’re still holding the knife like you’re afraid it’ll bite you,” he said, standing behind her and wrapping his much larger hand around hers to adjust her grip. “Grip it like it’s part of your arm.”
His chest was against her back, warm and solid. His breath tickled her ear. She wanted to lean into him, to feel more of that heat, but she forced herself to focus on the knife.
“Like this?” she asked, her voice unsteady.
“Better. Now slice. Thin. Even.”
Her hand trembled as she drew the blade through the meat, producing a slice that was still imperfect but better than her previous attempts.
“Again.”
She spent the entire morning slicing meat, her focus sharpening with each repetition until her movements became more fluid, more confident.
Afternoons were for chores. Cleaning the cabin, mending clothes—she’d discovered she was surprisingly good with a needle and thread, having learned decorative embroidery as a child—organizing the supplies in a logical system that made him grumble but never actually change.
“The herbs are grouped by use,” she explained when he pointed out that she’d rearranged his entire shelf. “Healing ones here. Ones for seasoning food here. The ones you use for salves in this separate container. It’s more efficient.”
“Efficient,” he repeated, the word sounding foreign on his tongue.
“You’ll thank me when you’re not searching for twenty minutes to find the right leaf.”
Each new skill was a small victory, each successfully completed task a tiny step towards independence. But she also learned her limits.
She couldn’t lift the heavy logs he brought from the forest. She couldn’t carry the full water bucket no matter how she tried.
She couldn’t work for more than a few hours before exhaustion forced her to rest. She was improving, yes—but improving from dismal to slightly less dismal was hardly a triumph.
“You’re frustrated,” he observed one evening, watching her struggle to split a piece of kindling.
“I’m failing,” she corrected, bringing the small axe down and missing her target entirely. The blade bit into the chopping block instead, and she had to wrestle it free with both hands.
“You’re learning. Learning requires failure.”
“I’ve been failing for three days. At some point, shouldn’t the learning part kick in?”
He made a sound that might have been amusement. “You’ve improved significantly. Your knife work is passable. Your fire maintenance is adequate. Your—”
“My strength is pathetic.” She dropped the axe and flexed her hands, feeling the ache in her palms. “I can’t do half the tasks that need doing because my body won’t cooperate. I can learn the technique perfectly and it won’t matter if I can’t lift the weight.”
He studied her for a long moment. “Strength takes time to build. Longer for someone starting from where you’re starting.”
“Is there a way to build it faster?”
“Not safely.”
“What about unsafely?”
His eyebrows rose. “You’d risk injury to gain strength more quickly?”
“I’d risk temporary discomfort to become less of a burden more quickly, yes.
” She met his eyes, unflinching. “I’m tired of watching you do three times the work because I can’t carry my share.
If there’s a way to change that faster, I want to know about it.
You’re strong, but it’s not just because you’re Vultor, is it? How did you build all those muscles?”
Unable to help herself, her gaze traveled over him.
Over the broad expanse of his chest and the heavily muscled arms, down to his powerful legs and, for just a second, to the impressive bulge between them.
She snapped her eyes back up to his, her face flushing.
His eyes flared gold before he looked away and her stomach flipped.
Stop looking, Ember. But she couldn’t help herself. He was magnificent.
“Daily training,” he said, returning to her question. “In my case it was warrior training. Pushing my body past its limits repeatedly, then letting it recover stronger. But you’ve already pushed past your limits, and your body is still recovering. Pushing more now could cause injury.”
“So what’s the solution?”
“Patience.”
She hated that answer. Hated the idea of waiting weeks, maybe months, to become capable of basic tasks. But she also hated the idea of hurting herself and slowing down her progress even more.
“Fine,” she said, picking up the axe again. “Patience it is.”
“Let me show you how to use your body’s momentum,” he said, stepping behind her. “You’re trying to power through with arm strength alone. Use your whole body.”
He guided her through the motion, his hands on her hips, his chest pressed against her back, showing her how to shift her weight and use the rotation of her torso to add power to the swing. The brief contact sent a jolt of awareness through her that had nothing to do with chopping wood.
“Again,” he said, stepping back.
She swung the axe, using her body as he’d shown her, and the piece of kindling split cleanly in two.
A slow smile spread across her face. “I did it.”
“Again.”
She did it again. And again. Each piece of kindling split with a satisfying crack of wood. By the fifth one, her arms were trembling, but she didn’t stop.
“Enough for today,” he said eventually.
“Just one more,” she insisted, bringing the axe down one final time.
The wood split, but the axe slipped from her numb fingers and clattered to the floor.
She stared at her hands shaking, her muscles quivering with fatigue.
But she also felt a surge of pride—a feeling that was becoming more familiar with each small victory.
“You did well,” he said, surprising her. “Your form is improving.”
The praise, however grudging, made her glow with pride. “Thank you.”
“You said warrior training helped you,” she said that night at dinner. “Can you teach me?”
He went completely still, his usual impassivity cracking into something that looked almost like shock.
“You want me to train you as a warrior?”
“I want you to teach me how to get stronger. If warrior training does that, then yes.”
“You’re human.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re female.”
“Also aware, thank you.”
“You’re—” He stopped, seeming to search for the right words. “You’re small. And soft. And completely untrained. Warrior conditioning would break you before it built you.”
“What if we modify it?” She held his gaze. “I’m not asking to become a Vultor warrior. I’m asking to become strong enough to carry a bucket of water without collapsing. Strong enough to survive whatever comes next.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said, his jaw tightening.
“Then tell me.”
“Pain. Exhaustion. Pushing your body past what it thinks it can bear. Morning drills in the cold. Exercises that will make your current soreness feel like luxury.”
“And at the end?”
“At the end, you’ll be stronger than you are now,” he admitted after a brief hesitation. “If you don’t give up.”
“I won’t give up.”
Another long pause. She could see him wrestling with something although she wasn’t sure what.
“This is madness,” he said.
“Probably.”
“You’ll regret asking.”
“I regret not being able to carry water. I’ll take my chances with the training.”
His eyes held hers for a breath, then two, then three. She didn’t look away, refusing to let any of the nervous energy churning in her stomach show on her face.
Please, she thought. Please give me this chance.
“We start tomorrow,” he said finally. “At dawn. And when you can’t move the next day, I don’t want to hear complaints.”
“You won’t,” she promised, and meant it with every fiber of her exhausted, determined being.